


Tradition

by TR33G1RL



Category: One Piece
Genre: Character Death, Character Study, Headcanon, not hawkins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 16:37:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20261182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TR33G1RL/pseuds/TR33G1RL
Summary: A simple, short take on how Hawkins' got his tarot cards.





	Tradition

Hawkins was but a young boy when his quiet voice had asked his mother what her tarot cards were. She had been shuffling them with her calloused but graceful hands, her eyes focused on their glossy backs as she calmed her breathing to a meditative rate. Her breathing was like a soft chorus in the calm scenery. She sat next to the river, under a large tree with looming branches, her long skirt around her like a puddle.

“Why do you always play with those cards?” He asked his mother as he moved to sit under the tree next to her. His eyes, always seemingly heavy and tired, had a light sheen, and only his mother could know the true emotion that causes such a look; curiosity. Her son had always been curious, so she wasn’t surprised when he asked about her tarot cards. So intelligent, her son. Oh, how she loved him so.

She gently smiled at her son as she watched him sit cross-legged next to her, his maroon eyes - just like hers - fixed on her hands and her cards. A light laugh falls from her lips like leaves in autumn as her hands continue to change the positions of the cards in relation to the other cards. “I wouldn’t call it ‘playing,’ dear,” She said with a mysterious wink that caused her son’s eyebrows to furrow in confusion.

“If it’s not ‘playing,’ then what is it?” He asks, his childish features pulled downwards in a light frown. He subtly moved closer to his mother, leaning closer so he can examine the intricate design on the back of the cards. The detailing was done in a gold color, the shapes sharp and smooth and curled, all at once, against the dark blue background. The deck was beautiful, more so than anything Hawkins’ young brain could recall having ever seen.

“It’s predicting. Preparing for the future, some might say.” Her hands finally stopped shuffling and she felt that the deck was ready to be read. But she didn’t lay out the cards yet, instead taking the time to explain the cards to her son. “With time, practice, and experience, you can learn to read these cards to tell possible outcomes for the future. I learned how to do it from my mother when I was about fifteen. When you are fifteen, I will teach you how to do it as well.”

Hawkins’ eyes - so wise for their young age - finally moved from the cards to look up at his mother’s fox-like features. “I will be able to predict the future?” He asked, the very concept confusing to his naive mind. “But I’m only seven. I don’t know how.”

A light chuckle fell from his mother’s lips again. “And that’s why I will teach you,” She replied with a voice like a spring breeze. She laid down the top card; The Magician. Such a familiar card, and when the question she asked her deck was ‘what Hawkins’ will grow up to be?,’ she was pleased to see that card. She looked back at her son, her ruby eyes shining with quiet, content pride. “Yes, I will teach you, and you will grow up to be great.” Her words had a certain finality to them that no child, even one as intuitive as Hawkins, could decipher.

“But I don’t have any cards,” Hawkins said as his expression furrowed into one of confusion once again. 

His mother gently put The Magician’s card back into a random spot in the deck and began shuffling again. She softly grinned at her son as she responded, “Not _ yet, _dear, but you will when you’re older.”

“I will?” Such a naive question. It brought Hawkins’ mother to smile wider.

She reached out and gently ruffled Hawkins’ short hair. “Of course. I’ll give you this one, and it will be your first deck.”

Hawkins found no more questions in his mind and gave a slow, silent nod. “I like that deck,” He said decisively. He set his hands in his lap as he continued to watch his mother shuffle the cards. Her hands were so graceful and elegant, Hawkins wasn’t sure how she did it. Would he be able to move like her when he was older, quiet and smooth and clever? He hoped so. His mother stopped shuffling once more and drew the top card again. ‘The Tower,’ it read. “What does that one mean, mother?” He asked, turning his eyes back up to her face.

His mother’s face had gone white, her dark-lined eyes open wide in panic and her mouth agape in a gasp. She quickly put the card back back in the deck as she turned, frantic, to her son. “Hawkins, go to the basement and hide behind the bookshelf. Stay there until tomorrow morning. Do not come out no matter what. Do you understand me?”

The whiplash at the change in his mother’s tone from peacefully content to panicked and seemingly in fear for her son’s life makes Hawkins’ mind reel. He blinked and stared blankly at his mother as she dragged both of them to their feet and rushed him to the house. As she hurried them to the basement, she said, “Hawkins, dear, do as I tell you and listen to everything I’m saying. Tonight, some people from my past are coming tonight and they’re going to kill me. I need you to hide and stay out of sight.”

Hawkins’ eyes went wide and his eyes welled up with tears as he tried to protest as his mother pushed the cabinet out of the way, exposing a short, shallow hole in the wall. She hushed him quickly and guided him to crouch in the small space. “Hush, dear. This is just how it has to be."

Then the bookshelf was pushed back in place, and Hawkins was left alone in the dark to listen to the sounds of gunshots and screams throughout the night. He was too shocked to cry.

(In the morning, Hawkins got splinters in his fingers when he pushed to bookshelf away.)

(When he stepped outside, he saw the entirety of his hometown dead and bleeding on the ground. His mother’s body was in town square, surrounded by several people who had died trying to protect his mother, the famous shipwright, Basil ‘The Chariot’ Beatrice.)

(Her tarot cards were still in her hand, the Ten of Cups flipped over on the top of the other cards.)

(Hawkins cried for several hours, cried until the whites of his eyes were bloodshot and red as his pupils.)

(Then he stood up and took a deep breath, because Hawkins’ mother had always told him that there was no use crying over spilled milk.)

(He could mourn later, after he was safe and away from his ransacked town.)

(Hawkins took his mother’s tarot deck from her hands and put it in his pocket before walking away in the direction of the nearest large city.)

(Years later, Hawkins would learn that some other witches have the tradition of not buying their own tarot decks, believing that they have to acquire them in other ways.)

(Inherited, gifted, found, stolen.)

(All these ways were allowed.)

(So, Hawkins wondered, how did he receive his?)

(Were they considered inherited? Stolen from a cooling corpse?)

(Either way, Hawkins thought, they are his now.)


End file.
